Overview Of Participating Companies

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The Body Shop

Anita Roddick founded The Body Shop in 1976. Her aim was to sell homemade, naturally inspired products with minimal packaging. She started with one shop in Brighton selling 25 products. There are now 1900 outlets in 50 countries including 300 in the United Kingdom.

The Body Shop positions its products higher than those available from high street chemists but lower than designer goods. The customer base, although generally women in the 19-45 age bracket, encompasses a wide range of men, women, young and old. The Body Shop has about 300 stores in the UK. The average spend is £13 but at Christmas this will increase to £16. In the ten weeks before Christmas The company takes 50% of its yearly takings. 50-60% of sales at this time are gift packs. In 2006 The Body Shop was sold to l'Oreal.

The Co-op

The Co-operative Group now includes over 1,700 food stores, 500 funeral branches, 380 travel shops and 300 pharmacies as well as the Co-operative Bank and Co-operative Insurance Society.

A co-operative is defined by the International Coo-operative Alliance as 'an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise'.

The first successful co-operative shop opened in Rochdale, Lancashire in 1844 because local people were tired of being exploited by private shopkeepers when buying basic foods. Customers of the shop were invited to become members of the co-operative and work in partnership to run the business openly, honestly and democratically for the benefit of the wider community. Co-operatives don't exist to make a profit for shareholders but their priority is to provide the best possible service for members and to share savings with them.

Sherburn-in-Elmet Co-operative Store is one of 19 food stores operated by Leeds Co-op in and around the city. The Sherburn-in-Elmet store is a village shop that is larger than the average Leeds Co-op store. It is six years old and has just undergone a refit to help it to attract more customers. The store is open 7am - 10pm Monday to Saturday and 10am - 4pm Sunday. As a focal part of the village the store has a lot of loyal customers and is especially busy during school hours as it is situated close to the nearby primary school.

Debenhams

Debenhams is a chain of high street department store which sell: fashion, health and beauty products and as a home range too. The company was established in 1778 although it wasn't until 1813 that the name Debenhams was firstt used. The first department store opened in 1905 and the company continued to grow and expand over the following years. In 1985 Debenhams became part of the Burton Group of companies but it was demerged in 1998 and became an independent company again. Debenhams customer base is the mass family market. The company employs 19,000 people and has 15.8 million visitors to its stores every year.

The company has a variety of stores, some of which are situated in old well-established buildings whilst others, such as the one at White Rose Centre, are based in new buildings. Stores range from 30,000 to 160,000 square feet. There are 125 Debenhams stores nationally. London's Oxford Street is the flagship store.

The Elite Group

The Elite Group is an independent group of companies operating a multi-million pound business from Wortley, West Leeds. The company specialises in the import and export of garments and other merchandise. Its customers are household names such as ASDA, Cotton Traders and Per Una for Marks and Spencer.

The company employs mainly local people and has a very warm friendly atmosphere. Elite invests heavily in staff training and up-to-date office and processing equipment. In this way Elite stays ahead of the game and is able to adapt quickly to changes in the market place.

Elite operates a fleet of trucks from ranging from 14 metre trailers and 7.5 tonne light goods vehicles through to courier vans. The fleet includes over fifty (50) custom-built hanging garment vehicles (each with a capacity of up to 20,000 garments). The Elite Group are capable of delivering to warehouse, or direct to high street store, in either hanging or boxed state.

All vehicles are fitted with the latest GPS satellite tracking systems allowing transport to be managed effectively and cost efficiently for clients with minimal risk. Delivery schedules can be timed to within a 15 minute delivery window.

Elite receives deliveries on a daily bases from all over the world and dispatches garments and other goods to UK's high streets efficiently and in excellent condition.

Games Workshop

Games Workshop is an international company based in Nottingham and was founded by three games fanatics over 30 years ago. The company is the largest battle-games company in the world. It designs, manufactures and retails table top battle-games, which include miniature plastic and metal soldiers and rulebooks. The company only sells its own products in its stores. The products include the core systems of Warhammer (a game of fantasy battles set in a world of dark magic), Warhammer 40,000 (a war-torn universe of the 41st millennium) and The Lord of the Rings (the battles and adventures from The War of The Ring). Games Workshop holds the global licence for a tabletop battle game for The Lord of the Rings. Stores also sell a number of specialist systems including Warmaster, Mordheim and Necromunda. Games Workshop has over 300 shops worldwide and 70% of its sales are from overseas.

Harvey Nichols

Harvey Nichols is an exclusive store that concentrates on high quality, designer goods. It originates from 1813 when Benjamin Harvey opened a linen store in Knightsbridge in London. When he died in 1820 the company passed to his daughter with the condition that she went into partnership with Colonel Nichols to sell oriental carpets, silks and luxury goods. Since then it has been owned by Debenhams and the Burton Group. The company has seven stores. The Leeds store was opened in 1996 and was the first store to be opened by the company outside London. It has since opened stores in Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia).

Sainsbury's

Sainsbury's is one of the top five supermarkets in the UK. The company now has around 600 stores and employs about 153,000 staff. Sainsbury's aims to deliver an ever-improving quality shopping experience for its customers with great products at fair prices. It aims to exceed customer expectations for healthy, safe, fresh and tasty food making their lives easier every day.

Sainsbury's was founded in 1869 by John James and Mary Ann Sainsbury. They opened a small dairy shop at 173 Drury Lane, London. Drury Lane was one of London's poorest areas and the Sainsburys' shop quickly became popular for offering high-quality products at low prices. They gradually opened more stores and by 1900 they had 48. The company continued to be owned by the Sainsbury family until 1973 when it was floated on the Stock Exchange.

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